Agumon's New Partner
by Karin Kinomoto
Summary: Sequel to Rose Petals, Recommended to skim Rose Petals first Tomoyo returns to Odaiba and encounters Matt, who reveals to her that her twin brother is dead. Is she the one who Agumon is looking for?


Sequel: Agumon's New Partner

By Ruki Minamoto

Summary: Sequel to Rose Petals Tomoyo reappeared after disappearing into the shadows of Odaiba for twelve years. She encounters Matt Ishida, who tells her a shocking revelation. The brother she has left so long ago is dead. Is she who Agumon is looking for?

Disclaimer: Digimon belongs to Akiyoshi Hongo, not Ruki Minamoto.

Chapter 1: Tomoyo's Return

A girl with waist-length brown hair walked out from the shadows and into the warm afternoon sun. She shielded her eyes against the glare and looked around. People…children…playing. She used to be like that. But that was before she…

She shook it from her mind and turned to retreat to the darkness from which she came, but someone was standing in front of her. He was the same height as her and had blonde hair with piercing child-like blue eyes.

"Hi!" the boy said cheerfully. She drew back defensively.

The boy watched as she tried to walk around him and moved in front of her. His eyes stared into her own.

"You seem familiar…I know those eyes…" he trailed off as shock overcame him. "Tai."

"Tai?" the girl asked, before memories flooded back to her hurtfully. "Tai."

"You know him?" the boy asked.

The girl nodded. Her eyes showed sadness and remorse.

"My brother," she whispered sadly and the boy was too shocked to stop her from walking away into the shadows.

Matt Ishida sighed and took a long drink from the soda he had brought. His beloved girlfriend, Sora Takenouchi, walked out from the shop carrying her own drink and sat down.

"Anything wrong, Matt?" the happy Sora asked.

Matt looked up from his soda and looked at his girlfriend lovingly.

"I met this girl just then…"

Sora leant forward.

"Really?" she asked suspiciously.

"Come on, Sora…I don't mean it like that. It's just…she came out of the shadows near the park…" Matt was interrupted by a worried Sora.

"The shadows near the park? Matt! That's where all the drug users and things like that live! Are you crazy? What on earth were you doing there?"

Matt glared at Sora.

"If you'll give me a chance to explain…Anyway, she had brown hair the exact shade that Tai's was and eyes that were exactly like Tai's…"

"Tai…" Sora whispered, looking down at her soda with hurt. Matt sighed sadly. He knew he had said the wrong thing. Tai had been Sora's very best friend. "What happened?"

"I murmured Tai's name and she just…she said his name in a moaning sort of way. I asked if she knew him, and she said yes." Matt continued.

"And?" Sora asked, tears filling her eyes and sliding down her cheeks.

"She said he was her brother." Matt finished. "I just thought you'd like to know."

Sora rose to her feet, her whole body shaking.

"But Tai never had a sister…never! I don't believe you! You're a liar, Matt Ishida!"

"Sora…" Matt said, climbing to his feet calmly. "Please…"

"No!" Sora snapped. "Leave me alone, liar!"

And with that, Sora stormed off, almost knocking TK over as he came over.

"Okay," TK whispered, "what happened?"

Matt sighed and explained everything to the eleven-year-old calmly. TK's eyes widened and he looked desperately to his sixteen-year-old brother.

"Really?" TK asked, not one trace of doubt in his eyes. "Tai had a sister? Well…what are we doing here then? Let's go find his sister!"

Matt forced a smile and stood up. For a moment, he didn't know if this was such a brilliant idea, but then he remembered how comfortable he had felt around the girl he had met that morning.

And suddenly, all his doubt was gone.

Matt led TK to the place he had seen the girl. There was no trace of her.

"I'm not so sure about this…" Matt whispered, his doubt returning. He then caught sight of the ever-positive TK and smiled. There was no doubt in his mind that TK would never let him quit. Perhaps Mimi's kidney had some of the brunette girl's stubbornness in it…

The two looked around desperately.

"Hey!" Matt called.

"Tai!" TK called. Matt looked in confusion to his little brother.

"Tai?" Matt asked.

TK smiled.

"If she supposedly spoke after hearing his name before, then why wouldn't shy do it a second time?"

Matt shrugged and continued looking around.

"Maybe you're right…Tai!"

Before long, the girl had returned. For someone who lived in the shadows with all the low-life's, she was surprisingly well dressed.

"Who called my brother's name?" she stopped. "You're the boy from this morning."

Matt nodded.

"I'm Matt Ishida and this is my little brother TK. How do you know Tai?"

The girl looked away, sadness filling her eyes.

"My twin brother…How do you know him?"

"He was our friend…He saved my life on more than one occasion." Matt said, trying not to cry.

"Oh…" the girl whispered. "How is he getting on these days?"

"He's dead." TK said bluntly.

"Dead?" the girl asked as tears fell down her cheeks. "How did he die?"

"He…well…" TK tried to search for the words, but luckily Matt found them for him.

"He donated a kidney for me about two years ago…he saved my life. But lost his in the process."

The girl used her wrist to wipe away tears.

"How is…his mother going?"

"She took his death pretty hard." Matt admitted. "But she and Mr Kamiya have now had another child…not that baby Hikari could ever replace Tai in our hearts, of course…"

"She's married?" the girl asked. "Again? After what happened last time?"

"What happened last time?" TK asked.

"Oh…" the girl trailed off and looked around. "Here is hardly the place to talk. Take me to Mrs…Kamiya - I need to see her."

Matt and TK shared a look of uncertainty, but eventually decided that they had better do what the girl wanted…who knew what she could do to them if they didn't.

Mrs Kamiya sat down on her bed and rested her chin in her hands. She stared at the photograph again. His smiling face…his bright brown eyes…his big hair…

She missed him so much…

A single tear streamed down her cheek. She didn't cry as much over him as she used to, but it still hurt to think that she'd never get to see what he might have become…what could have been…

"Mama?"

Mrs Kamiya rose to her feet. That voice was familiar, as if it was from some distant dream…

"Tomoyo?" she asked softly, not daring to believe it herself. Then, the door to her room burst open and a sixteen-year-old brunette girl raced in. She stopped in front of the woman.

"Mama…it's me…Tomoyo…I've come back."

Mrs Kamiya was doubtful and looked to the doorway to see Matt and TK standing there. TK gave her a thumbs up sign and Matt nodded.

So it was true…her daughter had returned to her twelve years after leaving.

Mrs Kamiya enveloped the girl in a hug and rested her head in the girl's mattered brown hair. It was still as she remembered Tomoyo's hair being, and as Tai's was - unruly and very hard to control.

"I don't believe this," she whispered. "What happened to you? Where did you go? Why did you leave?"

Tomoyo began to cry. She wasn't exactly the sort of girl who cried a lot - no one who lived on the streets really was - but now she couldn't stop the tears.

She was finally home again.

Chapter 2: Agumon's New Partner

That night, Tomoyo sat on the bed that had once been Tai's…in the room that the two had once shared. Tai's old soccer posters still covered the walls, even though several of the players were now dead, retired or on trial for some reason or other.

She closed her eyes and took another sip of the tea her mother had made her. She wondered what it would have been like if she had never left…if she had simply stayed here with her mother and brother. Would people have never brought up what she did in conversation, or would she have been a disgrace?

She didn't know and didn't care. If she had known that Tai had died, though, she would have come home a long time ago. Her mother needed to know that she still had a child…or, well, another one now that she had baby Hikari.

Tomoyo finally stood up and looked around. That night was still as fresh in her mind as if it had happened only five minutes ago.

_Flashback…_

_Four-year-old Tomoyo sat with her twin brother Tai, playing a video game. _

"_I am so gonna beat you this time, Tomoyo!" Tai cried with excitement as he ejected the old game and put in a new one._

"_Dream on, Tai," Tomoyo said happily, "dream on…"_

_She was interrupted by the sound of yelling downstairs._

"_Not again…" Tai whispered sadly. Tomoyo looked at her brother and crept out to see what was going on. Last time her parents had fought, her mother had been kicked in the stomach._

_Tai followed his sister and the two peered into the living room where their father was threatening their mother with a broken beer bottle. Instead of using it though, he changed his mind and punched her, sending her flying backwards._

"_Mummy!" Tai wailed, collapsing into sobbing fits. The man turned on the screaming child._

_Tomoyo wasn't about to let her brother be killed by their father, drunk or otherwise, and raced into the kitchen. She dug around in a drawer until she found the sharpest knife she could and ran back into the living room where her father was now barely and inch away from Tai._

"_Take this!" she shouted as she stabbed the man in the back of the neck with the knife. He fell down, presumably dead._

_Tomoyo then turned to Tai, to ask if he was all right, but he cowered away in fear. He must have thought that she was going to attack him._

"_Tai…I'm sorry," she whispered as she dropped the knife and ran, away from her father, her brother, her mother, her house and far away from anyone who could gossip about her. She shrunk into the shadows near the park with all the other low-life's and stayed there._

_End flashback…_

Tomoyo shook the thought from her mind. What had possessed her mother to remarry after last time? She supposed that the man must have been good, because Tai had changed his last name.

Mr Kamiya came into the doorway.

"Tomoyo?" he asked, uneasily. Tomoyo turned quickly. He almost jumped back, after all - his wife had told him about what had happened last time…

"Yes?" she asked.

"I…I want to get to know you. I accepted Tai as if he was my own son and I am prepared to do the same for you. Despite…you know…your mother trusts you and so do I."

Tomoyo's eyes filled with tears. Trust…a five-letter word that she had not understood since she was four.

"Yes…I'd like that…Thank you, Mr Kamiya."

Mr Kamiya turned to leave, but then stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"Call me Dad, okay?"

Tomoyo nodded and smiled. For once, it wasn't forced.

"Okay…Dad."

The word felt strange in her throat, as it was fairly unused, but calling someone like Mr Kamiya 'dad' felt strangely fulfilling.

The next day, Matt came around to take Tomoyo out for a walk.

"Come on," he said after they played at the park for a few hours, "let's go introduce you to Tai's old pals."

Tomoyo followed reluctantly as Matt led her to an apartment building.

"Mimi, Izzy and Joe live here," he explained easily as he rang the Izumi's doorbell.

Izzy opened the door and smiled at Matt.

"Hey Matt…who's she?"

"Izzy…you'll never believe this, but this is Tai's twin sister Tomoyo."

"Twin?" Izzy asked, examining Tomoyo. "Twin? Tai was a twin and he never said something?"

Matt shrugged.

"Apparently. Mrs Kamiya definitely knew who she was and her story checks out…Anyway, can you introduce her to the other digidestined? I need to talk to Sora badly."

"Digidestined?" Tomoyo asked, but didn't argue. People weren't being cruel to her or trying to steal anything of her, so what could she say.

"Hmm…" Izzy said. "Okay, I'll show Tomoyo around. Love issues, Matt?"

Matt rolled his eyes and looked pointedly at Izzy.

"Let's just say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus right now in our relationship."

Tomoyo rose an eyebrow.

"Really?" she asked. She looked to Izzy. "Men come from Mars?"

Izzy hung his head.

"You haven't been to school, have you?"

Tomoyo smiled guiltily and shook her head.

"Nope."

Izzy sweat-dropped.

"Oh brother."

Matt knocked on the door of the Takenouchi's apartment above the flower shop that Mrs Takenouchi owned.

"Oh, hello Matt." Mrs Takenouchi said cheerfully. "Sora's upstairs."

"Thanks!" Matt called as he ran inside and took the stairs two at a time to Sora's room. He knew the Takenouchi's house inside out because he was there so often. "Sora?"

Sora was lying face down on her bed, her face buried in a pillow.

"Go away!"

Matt sat on the end of the bed and rubbed Sora's back.

"Calm down, Sora," he whispered, "Tomoyo - that's that girl - she is the Kamiya's daughter and Tai's twin brother. Apparently she killed their birth father before he could kill Tai and then she ran away."

Sora stopped flailing around and looked into Matt's eyes.

"Mr Kamiya isn't actually Tai's father?" she asked. "Well, at least I'm not the only one who has a stepfather…"

"Mr Takenouchi _isn't _your father?" Matt asked. "What else have you been keeping from me?"

"Well," Sora whispered, "my Mum was having a really nice relationship with this much older man. She fell pregnant with me but after he started attacking her, she left him. I think his name was…Mamoru Daidouji."

Matt jumped to his feet.

"I'm using your phone!" he called as he raced downstairs to the phone. He called each of the digidestined until he caught Izzy and Tomoyo at Joe's apartment. "Joe!" he cried. "Put Tomoyo on!"

The girl spoke.

"Matt? What's going on?"

"Was your birth father's name Mamoru Daidouji?"

Tomoyo seemed taken aback by this blunt question, but then answered.

"Yes," she whispered, "he's the one I killed."

Matt froze. Sora and Tomoyo…that meant Tai as well…were half-siblings. Now this was an interesting development.

"Thanks, Tomoyo," he said, "I just needed to know that."

He hung up and ran back upstairs.

"Sora!" he puffed. "You…and Tomoyo and Tai…have the same…father!"

Sora sat up in instinct and shifted uneasily.

"That means…"

Matt nodded as Sora let out a loud moan of annoyance.

"My half-brother is dead! My brother! He never even knew!"

Biyomon flew in the window and landed on the head of the bead.

"Hey," she said, "you can hear that a street away…what's all this about?"

Matt stood up and sighed.

"Sora can take it from here, Biyomon. I need to talk to Tomoyo right now."

And with that, Matt left.

When he got home, TK was with Gabumon, Patamon and Agumon, playing Twister.

"Right foot, green!" Patamon declared as the three struggled on the mat.

"Ouch! Gabumon, that was my hand!" TK moaned.

"Sorry, but your hand is on my green circle!"

Matt walked over and grabbed Agumon, who was laughing at the struggle going on.

"Hey, Agumon?"

Agumon looked up.

"Yeah, Matt?"

"Come with me…I think I may have found your partner."

"Partner?" Agumon asked. "But my partner's dead!"

"Yes…but I think I've found another one." Matt said with a smile as the two left.

Tomoyo was sitting in the park, staring into the shadows. The only home she really remembered.

Part of her longed to return to the place. She didn't have to worry about love, and there were no rules…no pain…no one cared that she had killed her father, but if anyone outside the shadows found out…

"Tomoyo?"

Tomoyo looked up to see Matt towering over her.

"Matt?" she asked. "What are you doing here and…what is that!"

She had caught sight of Agumon.

"This," Matt said, "is Agumon."

The boy sat down next to Tomoyo and explained everything about Digiworld and the digimon. When he finished, Tomoyo was simply staring at him.

"You're kidding, right?" she asked. "You have to be kidding me."

Matt shook his head and pulled out his digivice.

"Do you have one of these?" he asked. Tomoyo thought for a moment and nodded, pulling one out of her pocket. The silver digivice gleamed in the afternoon sun.

It glowed.

Matt and Agumon shared a look.

"Agumon," Matt said, trying to contain laughter, "meet Tomoyo, uh…"

"Kamiya." Tomoyo said comfortably.

"Yes," Matt smiled. "Meet Tomoyo Kamiya and Tomoyo, meet your digimon partner, Agumon."

Agumon and Tomoyo embraced in a hug and Matt began to laugh. He hadn't felt this close to Tai since they had been taken into the operating theatre together.

Matt looked up to the sky and was certain that he could see Tai's happy face amongst the clouds, along with Yuya and JJ's. He was certain that he could hear their laughter once more.

But then again, it might have just been his imagination.

A/N: This story was supposed to be two chapters, but coz it's so short…I sorta combined two into one. Okae with u guys?

Thanks to all my reviewers: Sweet Cari, LilyXJames, Higuchimon


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